I didn't get one in the end but I was thinking about one of these amps and when I was looking into it I discovered that they come with either EU rated transformers (210v) or UK rated ones (240v). Apparently extended use of the 210v version in the UK can cause problems with the amp which would not be covered under warranty.
It could be an issue when buying from retailers that source their stock from Germany - which includes DV247 and obviously Thomann. I asked DV247 about this and they seemed completely clueless, just saying that they would send a UK kettle lead and that everything was covered under their 3 year warranty.
I wonder why this applies to the Grandmeister particularly. As far as I know, other H&K amps aren't sensitive to voltage in this way.
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All box shifters.
I bought the 240v one from the UK but @ragingben got a lower voltage one and had the same concerns.
Ben - do you remember what you were told? I believe it was ok.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Unless someone can come up with concrete evidence that the UK units are different then I remain sceptical. Thomann certainly think they are the same. My theory is that H&K found late in the day that the reliability was suffering when operating at the higher end of the supply voltage tolerance and slapped this condition on to limit their exposure. Iirc this condition appeared after the first tubemeisters were shipped which suggests to me some retrospective realisation of a problem. I also suspect that the Grandmeister used the same design and it was too late to change it by the time the problem became apparent.
It makes no sense to me that they should supply UK only units given their likely sales volumes here. Surely once a problem was found you would fit a replacement part that provided the necessary performance and reliability across the supply voltage range in Europe/UK not split your production into UK/rest of Europe?
Totally happy to hold my hand up and accept I am wrong upon seeing proof but a statement from a distributor with a vested interest and a track record of not being very sure what is going on doesn't cut it for me.